Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
by jiapet
Summary: It's Harry's sixth year and tension fills the halls of Hogwarts as students are forced to take sides. The trio sets forth in a series of adventures, including one to the Department of Mysteries to rescue Sirius Black.


**Chapter 1 – The Mirror**

Harry Potter stared out his bedroom window at Number Four Privet Drive to see the last of the evening's sun as it disappeared beneath the horizon. His thoughts wandered back to the events that filled the previous week. His head flooded with feelings of grief, resentment, and anger. So much had happened in just a few days... so much that he wished could be undone.

Harry had just returned from King's Cross Station with the Dursley's. It had only been hours since his departure from Hogwarts and his friends, but already he felt isolated—millions of miles from the wizarding world. But then Harry remembered his neighbor Mrs. Figg. He had found out last summer that she knew full well about witches and wizards. She was however not a witch herself, but a Squib. Harry couldn't have talked to her anyway, even though he ached to relieve himself of the pain that he held inside.

The white-hot anger of the past few days surged within him, freshly renewed at the thought of what happened at the Department of Mysteries. Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort, and Sirius. Harry couldn't help but blame himself for what happened to his godfather just days ago. _If I had only opened Sirius's package earlier, then I would've communicated with him directly, rather than being lied to by Kreacher; then I would've known that Sirius was safe, and I wouldn't have gone to the Ministry of Magic, Sirius would still be alive... Or maybe if I had just listened to Hermione and continued Occlumency lessons with Snape..._

Just then, Harry remembered Professor Snape, and how he had taunted Sirius about being stuck in the house, about being able to do nothing. Once again, Harry found himself filled with acidic anger—he was so angry that he felt as if he could breathe fire. He was angry with everyone. Angry with himself, with Snape, with Dumbledore, and everyone else he could put the blame on. When the anger subsided, Harry felt empty. The vast emptiness inside of him came from the void he felt in his heart, the void in which Sirius used to be. Sirius was the closest thing Harry had to a parent...

Harry closed his eyes—he didn't want to think about it anymore. He slowly drew the curtains and tripped on one of Dudley's broken video games while stubbing his toe. Harry swore mildly, not realizing how loud it had been. Out of instinct, he listened intently to the room next door... hearing the master bed creak as the large beefy body of Uncle Vernon stirred. With a sigh of relief, Harry took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

Harry awoke with a start, hearing a faint tapping noise from outside. He looked outside his window to see a blurry figure bobbing up and down. Confused, Harry remembered he had not been wearing his glasses. He reached over to his bed stand and fumbled around for them. With them on, the blurry figure had come into focus. He was surprised to see Pigwidgeon, Ron's scrawny minute owl excitedly flying into the window over and over again. He was holding a letter much too big for him. Harry, afraid that Pig might drop any second, clambered over to the window, and opened it just in time for Pig to zoom into the room. Harry caught him without another thought, being the best seeker Gryffindor House has ever seen in decades. Harry had just seen Ron the day before, so it must've been important. Anxious to see what Ron had sent him, Harry eagerly tore the letter open and read it:

_Harry-_

_Hey, how was your first day back with the Muggles? It's good to be back at the Burrow! I'm going to be very busy this summer helping Fred and George with their joke shop. You couldn't believe how well business is going! Thanks again for the gold you gave them; Mum already found out. She wasn't quite as angry as we thought she'd be, given the current circumstances at least. Speaking of that matter, how have you been holding up? Dad says if your big oaf of a Muggle uncle will allow it, you can come visit us for the rest of the summer! I know you've barely been back with those horrible Muggles, but I also know for a fact you'd have a lousy time staying with them. Fred and George are here for another week before they move out on their own, so it'll be just like old times. Well, minus the Percy, but I'll talk to you about that later. Mum and Dad are mostly gone because of you-know-what, so it's usually just Ginny and me here during the day. I'm hoping you can come! I'm sure the Muggles won't stop you, seeing as Moody, Lupin, and Tonks gave them quite a scare yesterday. Anyway, hope to hear from you soon! Send a reply with Pig._

_-Ron_

_P.S. Hermione's here too. Mum invited her because we might all be going to you-know-where soon._

When Harry finished reading his letter, he had a big smile on his face. He would be staying at the Weasleys's for the entire summer which meant no more of Dudley's whining, Aunt Petunia's nosing, or Uncle Vernon's... well, everything. But at that moment, Harry remembered what Dumbledore had told him at the end of last term. Harry would only be safe as long as he could call Number Four Privet Drive home. Then again, all he really had to do was return there once a year, right? He tried to reassure himself and it worked. Harry quickly opened the loose floorboard under his bed, pulled out a spare bit of parchment and a quill, and scribbled the shortest letter he's ever written to Ron:

_I'll be there in a flash!_

_-Harry_

He turned to tie it to Pigwidgeon's leg, just in time to see his snowy owl Hedwig cluck in disapproval toward its unprofessional behavior. Pig was delighted to have another job and started to zoom out of Harry's window as fast as it had zoomed in. At the last second, Harry grabbed Pig and hesitated for a moment. Did he really want to be going to the Weasleys's so soon? He sure had a lot on his mind. But after a few moments' thoughts, Harry decided that he'd much rather be at the Burrow with the people he cared most about instead of staying at Privet Drive. Besides, playing Quidditch with Ron and the twins would keep Harry's mind off of things. After all, thanks to Dolores Umbridge's lifelong Quidditch ban, it had been months since Harry played. Harry had gotten his Firebolt back, a reminder of Sirius Black's love.

Harry finally had a bit of hope in him—he was leaving the Dursley's for almost another year without having to hear from them... and going to the Burrow, the happiest place he had ever been. Harry then headed downstairs, where he heard the clanking of a few pans and the sizzling of bacon. Aunt Petunia had been up, and would soon be calling "Get down here, boy! Get a move on!" to Harry, as she had done every morning the previous summers.

At breakfast Dudley was telling a story about how he and his friends beat up a kid on the last day of school with their Smeltings sticks. Apparently, the boy had been trying to do a few card tricks. And the Dursleys, of course, would have nothing to do with anything that remotely related to magic. They simply loathed Harry and the wizarding world. Dudley's behavior seemed to have pleased his parents greatly because Uncle Vernon appeared to be in a particularly good mood. He was also getting a new company car, which was coming in that very evening. Wanting to take advantage of his uncle's good mood, Harry cautiously decided to mention something about the going to the Weasleys's.

"Un-uncle Vernon?" asked Harry timidly.

"What do you want, boy?" Uncle Vernon demanded, eyeing Harry suspiciously.

"Oh, umm... my friend Ron Weasley, from Hog—I mean, _school_, invited me over to his house for the rest of the summer. So, you know, I was wondering if it was okay with you..." said Harry cautiously.

"And why should I agree to let you go off with your freaky little friends?" sneered Uncle Vernon.

He obviously had not forgotten about two years ago when the Weasleys came to pick up Harry for the Quidditch World Cup and had come through the chimney with Floo Powder, giving the Dursleys quite a bit of a nasty shock. Not to mention Dudley's tongue being turned into a giant, purple, writhing snake-like thing by one of Fred and George's tricks, and half of their living room being destroyed. Needless to say, Uncle Vernon despised of the Weasleys and all their kind.

"Well, you would be getting rid of me a couple of months in advance, and you wouldn't have to drive me to King's Cross or worry about me at all." Harry said quickly.

Uncle Vernon seemed to have given this some thought. After a few seconds of casting dark looks toward Harry, his wild hair, and scar, Vernon's thick black mustache twitched, and he nodded. Then without further notice to Harry, he looked back down to his newspaper, and continued eating his fatty breakfast.

--

Harry hastily packed his trunk and thought to himself, _this'll be the last I see of Privet Drive for almost an entire year_, and he couldn't be happier. He did wish, though, that he hadn't unpacked his things already, because then he would be saved the trouble of putting everything back in his trunk. He was looking forward to going to seeing Ron and Hermione again, and the Burrow had always been more of a home than Number Four ever was. Harry stopped packing for a moment and looked out the window. It seemed like lifetimes ago that Ron and his twin brothers were outside peering at him through bars in Mr. Weasley's bewitched Ford Anglia. Harry smiled as he remembered this. A sharp pain on Harry's left hand abruptly brought him back to reality. He swore quietly and jerked his hand away from the trunk. A bit of broken glass had sliced into his palm, and drops of blood were oozing out of the deep cut. _Great_, thought Harry, _the last thing I need is another scar_.

He peered into the trunk to see what the broken glass had come from, and was surprised to see the shards of an old mirror. It was the present Sirius had given him last Christmas, which Harry had broken out of frustration. Seeing it again had only brought back more feelings of anger and emptiness. _If I had only opened this earlier, Sirius would have never died. _Harry pulled out his wand from his bedside dresser and stood with it beside his trunk. He wanted to repair it with magic, but he was still restricted by the law to do so. _A simple charm wouldn't hurt, would it? _But Harry decided not to risk it. He had remembered how much trouble Dobby's hover charm had gotten him in during the summer before his second year, and he didn't want to do anything that would anger the Dursleys.

_They're already being nice enough to let me stay at the Burrow for the rest of the summer_, thought Harry, _I'd better not push my luck_. The Dursleys would definitely have locked Harry back up in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer if large screech owls had started zooming in and out of the house. But the thought of the Burrow had sparked an idea in Harry's head. He would just have to wait until he saw Mr. or Mrs. Weasley and one of them could repair the mirror for him. With this to look forward to, Harry eagerly but gingerly removed the shards from the bottom of his trunk and carefully bound them together with spell-o-tape. He wrapped it in a particularly lumpy pair of Uncle Vernon's socks, put it back into his trunk, and continued to pack.

Five minutes later, Harry was already at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn't sure whether or not to tell the Dursleys that he was leaving. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were all in the living room watching a popular television program. Harry could hear Dudley's occasional snorts of laughter.

"I'm going now," called Harry.

No one answered.

"Well, see you next summer," he said.

Harry pushed the front door open and walked out onto the sunny street, dragging his trunk behind him, scraping noisily on the pavement. He looked around. Nobody was outside except for one of his nosy neighbors, but she was busy watering the flowerbeds. It was safe. Harry reached into his jacket, pulled out his wand, and jabbed it into the air over the street in front of him. With a loud bang, a violently purple triple-decker appeared seemingly out of nowhere. A lanky young man stepped out of the Knight Bus.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wiz—Hey! Neville!" said Stan Shunpike. He looked older now and his complexion had cleared up a bit since the last time Harry had seen him. "Hey, Ern!" he called back into the bus, "You wouldn't believe who it is! It's Neville! Remember him, Ern? Neville's Harry Potter!"

"Yeah," said Harry impatiently, "do you mind? I want to get to the Burrow. Any day now would be nice."

A few minutes later, Harry stepped foot out of the Knight Bus onto the Weasleys's lawn. Stan helped him unload his trunk and got back into the bus. "See you, Neville!" he yelled, and with another loud bang, the Knight Bus disappeared.

--

"Harry!" said Ron, "Glad you could make it, mate!" He got up from his chair at the kitchen table to greet his friend with a slap on the back. Harry saw that Ron still had great, dark scars from the brains that had attacked him a week before. He quickly tried to look like he hadn't noticed. "Hermione, Ginny! Harry's here!" yelled Ron.

Ginny and Hermione burst into the kitchen and took turns giving Harry hugs. The four of them were smiling widely when Mrs. Weasley came in.

"Harry, dear!" she said, "I'm so glad to see you!" She gave him a warm smile, squeezed him tightly, and a kissed him on the forehead. "I'm just about to have lunch ready for you. I hope the Muggles haven't been starving you; you look a bit peaky!" She felt his forehead. "Anyway, sit down, the lot of you! Ron, dear, did you wash your hands after de-gnoming the garden?"

--

With full stomachs and a successfully repaired mirror, Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed upstairs. For the first time ever, Harry told them about it and filled them in on what he was planning to do. Ron thought it was a good idea, and Hermione had a look of concern on her face but didn't say anything.

"Well, give it a go," urged Ron.

Harry looked at them excitedly as his stomach was filled with anticipation. He had tried it once before, but it didn't work. Maybe he did it wrong last time; maybe he didn't wait long enough for Sirius to respond. He looked at his cloudy reflection in the mirror and saw that he was looking rather pale.

"Sirius Black!" said Harry.

Nothing happened.

"Sirius! Sirius Black! I want to speak with Sirius Black!"

The only thing staring back at Harry was his himself.

Harry was starting to feel a bit queasy. The feelings he had at the end of last term had resurfaced, and he didn't know why he had wanted to try the mirror again in the first place. He looked up at Ron and Hermione, their faces full of concern, and felt rather foolish. They must've thought he was mental, trying to talk to a mirror and expecting his dead godfather to appear.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but Ron elbowed her hard in the ribs.

"Hey, Harry, maybe you're just doing it wrong. Maybe Sirius forgot to tell you something when he gave it to you." he said.

"Yeah… right," said Harry sarcastically, "what am I supposed to do, hop on one leg and sing the Sorting Hat's song?"

Ron sniggered before he could stop himself. Harry looked angry and Ron quickly said something before he could get yelled at.

"No, mate, calm down," he said, "Maybe you have to give it a good prod with your wand or something."

Harry thought that Ron had a point, but tried not to show it. He muttered in agreement and pulled out his wand.

"Sirius Black!" said Harry, as he poked the mirror with the tip of his wand.

Still nothing.

"It's hopeless," said Harry. "I should've known it wasn't going to work." He looked at Ron and Hermione sadly. But their eyes were still on the mirror.

"Look—" said Hermione.

Harry turned his gaze back upon the mirror. The surface had turned into what looked like a silvery mist and started swirling around the point where the tip of Harry's wand had been only moments before.

"Harry!" said the grinning face of Sirius Black, "it's about time!"


End file.
